World Touring Car Champs Rd 1: Alfa Romeo 1, BMW 1
from Automotive (1599 articles)
April 11, 2005: The inaugural World Touring Car Championship, which has lifted touring car racing to the same level as Formula One and the World Rally Championship, got underway at the weekend (9-10 April 2005) in Italy, with race honours split between the two top teams, BMW and Alfa Romeo. Alfa Romeo went into the race the favourites, after a dominating first practice two weeks ago at the historic Monza track. But conditions for Round One - cold and bleak - were very different and after the cancellation of Friday's practice due to the funeral of The Pope, BMW's Dirk Muller clinched pole position on Saturday for the first of the two races in round one of the 2005 WTCC.
Dirk Muller went on to make history, capitalising on his pole position and claiming the first race win of the FIA World Touring Car Championship. With a dry track and confidence in his car, Dirk drove a solid race.
While the BMW driver edged away from the rest of the pack, there was a riveting battle for third place. Andy Priaulx made several attempts to overtake Alfa Romeo's Farfus, creating some nail biting moments. But strong defensive driving from the Brazilian ensured that the 2004 FIA ETCC champion couldn't find a gap that would have given him a spot on the podium. Team Alfa Romeo took both second and third place in front of an enthusiastic Italian crowd of more than 40,000, with Tarquini finishing 2.465 seconds behind Dirk.
"In the first race Dirk was too quick for us and we did not manage to keep his pace," said Gabriele Tarquini. "The second race looked promising, despite that I did not have a good start. I was moving up, but when I tried to overtake Dirk at Lesmo he pushed me off."
Augusto Farfus agreed with his team mate. "In the first race it was difficult to keep close to the BMW cars. In the second race I made a mistake and lost track on the first corner. The championship is long. We have a good car and a good team. I'm sure that like last year it will be decided in the last race of the last round."
Garcia, who started second on the grid, has had a bad start of the day. He damaged his car during the warm up session this morning but the BMW Team Italy-Spain ensured the car was repaired in time for the green lights. Lap three saw more difficulties for the Spaniard as Farfus nudged him of the track during an overtaking manoeuvre. Garcia skilfully kept the car under control, rejoined the race and kept on the pace to finish in a positive fifth position.
Throughout the whole race the three SEAT Sport drivers were in a close fight with Alfa Romeo's men Giovanardi and Thompson, and eventually Rydell finished eighth, just ahead of Gene, to claim the final point.
The Ford Hotfiel Sport team have had a challenging weekend with engine problems and difficulty finding the pace. Klenke retired on lap 5 again with engine problems, while his team-mate Jäger was involved in a collision with Menu's Chevrolet. Chevrolet is also a team that have work to do to make it to the podium but all three cars finished the race, with Huff as their fastest driver.
Marc Hennerici, the Wiechers-Sport man, claimed maximum points for the Michelin Independent Drivers' Trophy crossing the line a superb 13th overall.
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